NOVEL WEB Interlude 5: The Man With the Metal Hand
Interlude 5: The Man With the Metal Hand
His thoughts were being aggressively Italian again, a problem that worsened by the day. He couldn't help it, anytime he started to get dangerously depressed or stressed he'd begin going on mental rants to himself, usually about the standards for food in Ryuukai or the insipid designs currently running rampant in the city. It was better than indulging in thoughts of suicide or engaging with the many semi-legal high-end pharmaceuticals his coworkers favored he supposed, but it didn't speak well of his mental state. He wasn't Italian, not really, he was Ted Andersen, and his entire family was from Ohio. He wasn't a fussy Milanese cyberneticist named Antonio D'Antonio, he was a database engineer for a regional bank, with no strong opinions on fashion, lighting, or design whatsoever.
He refrained from glaring at the secretary's cybernetic arm again, she'd surely notice if he kept it up any longer and he didn't want to offend her. It was a bright red, fibre-steel statement piece that cost an order of magnitude more than what his apartment did to rent for a year, completely ruined by the absurd RGB fittings and the fact that she'd made the mistake of having the hand match her other one instead of simply ordering something beautiful and elegant. It was a simpleton designer that favored pointless symmetry over artistic expression; no one ever sees someone else's hands close enough to make a comparison between the two, it was ridiculous. And even if they did, who would care? So, you had one human hand and one work of art – in what world would you be judged poorly for that?
Much of what Mena Technologies did could rightly be considered a waste of time, innovation for the sake of innovation, all for corporate vanity. Everyone with eyes knew that the Milan School had perfected human cybernetic design. What his professors and predecessors had done was so iconic that it defined European cybernetic research. While the megacorporations of Asia fought amongst themselves to brand their own proprietary frameworks and design guides, their European counterparts had wisely decided to focus on improving and expanding the functions of the tech within the superior Milan School frame. Fibre-steel was meant to stay inside the chassis, not serve as the outer layer – ugh, it was hideous to see it in the open. This fad would only last until people realized how expensive, in both time and money, it was to repair and clean damaged fibre-steel.
He shook his head and slapped his cheek a little. There he went, doing it again. The idea of quitting had his head in a mess – Ted had always been a company man, willing to overlook a lot in exchange for steady employment, and he absolutely hated making major life decisions. It used to drive his wife, Cici, insane, and would do so again, hopefully, once they met up and put all of this madness behind them.
The man once known as Ted Andersen stood up from his comfortable leather chair and walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows of Mr. Mizutani's waiting room. Ryuukai was a dystopic hellscape, but the view was fantastic up here on the 110th floor; the city of the future stretched to the horizon, bleak to live in, but pretty to look at. It was early enough in the day that the smog had yet to render the scene unviewable, not long past sunrise, and the gold of the morning sun was reflected in the many rivers of the city, like veins of fire on the devil's benighted cock. Ted thought that it would have made a good moving screensaver, on the off chance anybody started using screensavers again; the people were little technicolor ants, streaming from one neon sign to the next, rushing to and from shining steel skyscrapers swaying almost imperceptibly in the heavy Pacific winds, their glass tinted a marvelous array of pastel pinks and purples. Everything on the island was garishly colorful. They had tried to paint a rainbow over the black heart of the city.
"Mr. Oh?"
It took him a moment to realize that Mizutani's secretary had been talking to him. Mena Technologies didn't make everyone take a suitable Ryuukaian name to fit the company culture better, but it was heavily incentivized through the M-point system. M-points could be exchanged for vacation time, which at the time he assumed he would need in abundance to track down his wife and friends. 'Oh Yasushi' was the name he'd been randomly assigned.
"Pardon me. What was that?" he asked in his nearly flawless Japanese, and not the specific dialect of the island, the actual language. He'd bought the language up to fluency last night with the Experience he'd earned from the raid. He had to get out of here. Once he started over at a similar zaibatsu in Tokyo he'd have a much better chance of finding Cici, who was presumably stuck as a kunoichi somewhere in Japan, and he'd be far away from the nightmarish pit of misery that was Ryuukai. Plus, MenTec didn't allow employees with his security clearance to use social media, arguably his best chance of finding his friends.
The secretary smiled apologetically, as though she'd interrupted some grand work of genius and not his idle moping. People were treating him radically differently than they had only a week ago. Not only was MenTec courting him away from any thoughts of quitting, Ted had also 'randomly' earned 2 Dice in Presence and 3 in Seduction and the combination was beginning to affect his day-to-day life.
"I said Mr. Mizutani is almost ready to see you. May I make you another coffee or a cup of tea before your meeting?"
She was a pretty Filipina who must have been spending every one of her M-points on subsidized cyberware because there was no way she could have afforded what she had on her salary, even assuming that Mizutani was tipping her in cash for 'extra services'. Her hair had been replaced with smart microwire, which could let a person change every aspect of it, from color to length, to curliness, and even included LED displays. Today it was pearl white, long, straight, and with a golden shimmer to it. He didn't recognize her optics, but she'd replaced both eyes which couldn't have been a cheap surgery or recovery, and she'd had a MenTec military-grade socket bay cleverly concealed behind her left ear, only visible in passing.
The ten-million-dollar woman, he thought to himself, what's your secret? "That's quite alright, thank you. Any more caffeine will only make me anxious."
"I understand," she said with a bow. "I have herbal tea as well, or if you'd like, I can give you a shoulder massage to help you relax."
He gave her a polite smile but shook his head and looked away, nonverbally dismissing her and the very idea of such physical intimacy. Not only was he still married, he had met very few people so overtly out of a cyberpunk dystopia as Mizutani's secretary and was duly suspicious of her. She looked like a Stand User with her too-tight, too-short pencil skirt and blouse, bright red arm, and shimmering white hair – and could the Producers have been any more obvious with the visual metaphor? A red right hand and a glowing white synthetic halo, right before he was to meet with an executive to determine his future in the company? Really?
Ted had come up with a plan to survive this ordeal early on, he called it: Proactive Reactivity. In short, he stayed vigilant for any cyberpunk bullshit, and should he encounter or suspect it to be afoot, he would move to decisively shut it down. Here, that involved shutting down the secretary's seduction attempt. At other times this week, it had involved covert investigation, frequently, and overwhelming, immediate firepower, only once, thankfully.
Ted spotted the attack helicopter well before the building's defenses could react. It was flying far too low, about even with the 110th floor if not a bit lower, and was without a doubt moving in their direction.
"Shit."
He moved quickly, interposing himself between the secretary and the window, and locking his arm into its bolt cannon mode. The loud whine of the railgun preparing to fire filled the room, a sound that he had shamefully come to love recently. Ted tracked the helicopter on the small chance that he needed to intervene in the situation. His bolt cannon could pierce the building's aluminum glass panel, but he'd have to fire in quick succession to punch through both it and the helicopter. It was possible – he had the feat for it – but might leave him crippled for a day or two, and the superheated air would likely result in severe burns regardless.
Red LED light strips began to flash above them, and each window panel displayed a large message in Japanese, Chinese, and English. STEP AWAY FROM THE WINDOW, they read, scrolling down in a repeating pattern, DEFENSE LEVEL ONE ACTIVATED.
"Attention," came a loud announcement from the floor's speakers in Ryuukaian Japanese, "an external threat has been detected outside the building. Please shelter in place. Security quarantine is active. Do not leave the floor you are on." The message then began to repeat, cycling through the half-dozen languages common to the city.
At the last moment, the helicopter swooped down, turning its back to the tower, and opening up heavy machine gun fire on a line of cars stuck in the morning traffic on the Daniel Huang bridge. The tower was heavily insulated, but nothing could have held back the thunder of two mounted miniguns firing at full blast, or the resulting explosions of torn-apart gas tanks going up in flames.
"Hm. A few of those cars are registered to MenTec," said the secretary, coming around him to take a look. Her eyes moved side to side, as though she was reading something. "One of them belongs to Director Nguyen, I wonder if he's the target or if it's bad luck."
Defensive drones launched from the tower's roof and began circling the building.
"Director Nguyen? I'm not familiar with what they're working on."
"He's the head of the aqua-tech division; it's big money. Indonesia just signed a contract to retrofit half their fleet with MenTec sensors. Let's hope that cancels out whatever stock dip this will cause." She shrugged, turned to him, and gave him a big smile. "Thanks for stepping in front of me like that, very chivalrous."
He nodded a silent acknowledgment and unlocked his arm from cannon mode. Just like that, the threat was forgotten, having become someone else's problem. Someone else's division, someone else's attack helicopter to deal with, as far as the both of them were concerned. What's that, a helicopter is doing strafing runs on a bridge during the height of morning rush hour traffic? That's Ryuukai for you.
God, he hated it here.
"Mr. Mizutani asked for another twenty minutes just now. Are you sure I can't make you a hot drink?"
"Understandable," he said. "And yes, I think I will take that coffee."
Mizutani was standing facing the window when he entered the office, hands on his hips, watching the firefighters work to put out the over a dozen burning cars on the bridge.
"You know, Mr. Oh, I'm supposed to be convincing you to not leave the company right now. Pretty shit timing, eh?"
The executive was the image of an amicable, relatable older brother figure. He was handsome, but not too handsome, formally dressed but just shabby enough to not be intimidating, and instead of smiling he wore a friendly smirk like he was about to tell you a joke. It was an excellent performance, but Ted was the wrong audience. He was more than genre-savvy enough to know that no man rose to Mizutani's position without leaving a lot of ruined lives behind him.
Ted approached the desk and bowed. "Mr. Mizutani."
The fifty-something waved him off. "Please, I insist you call me Ichiro when we're in private. You've had a hell of a week, Oh, saved me a lot of money. A lot of money," he repeated.
He bowed his head. "A matter of luck, sir."
Mizutani shook his head, walked back to his desk, and gestured for him to sit down. "If you believed that, you wouldn't be trying to escape the island, would you? I know you haven't been enjoying your time here, and in light of the week you've had, I can't blame you."
"I assure you, it isn't the company, sir—"
"Ichiro, please."
Ted gave a hint of a smile, his way of yielding to the faux hospitality. He'd play along with Mizutani for now. "Only if you call me Yasushi."
"Happily, Yasushi. Please continue."
"I love my work at MenTec, ehm, Ichiro. I'm merely," he turned to look at the rising cloud of black smoke out the window, "very, very tired of this island, in a very short period of time. I don't anticipate that trajectory is going to change."
Mizutani pulled a pack of cigarettes from his desk and offered it to him. "Smoke? Don't worry, the ventilation is designed for it."
Ted never smoked, but Antonio D'Antonio was an extremely particular Italian dandy. Antonio loved smoking. "Yes, thank you." He let Mizutani light it for him and took in a deep, grateful drag.
"You don't have to bullshit me, Yasushi. I owe you too much, and frankly, we have your psych profile, we know you hated your assigned project." He shrugged, looking chagrinned. "But let's focus on the first thing. MenTec and I, personally, owe you a great deal of gratitude. You've gone far above and beyond anything we could have reasonably expected from a researcher in your position."
"And your growth, my god!" he continued, waving his cigarette around for emphasis. "I mean, what you've done to your own arm in your free time with your limited resources is—let's just put it this way, you have a lot of leverage here, Yasushi. Mena Technologies is committed to investing in you; we believe you're an astronomically appreciating asset. There's no reason you should be considering leaving the company – zero! People have killed to be in the position you're in right now. We want to buy you out before other companies realize what we've got and start a bidding war over it. You could ask for basically anything, man. 'Within reason'," he said, doing air quotes, "can mean a hell of a lot for you."
Ted closed his eyes and sighed. Shit, he thought. He'd assumed they'd make some counteroffers to keep him around, but he hadn't anticipated a full charm offensive.
He opened his mouth but wisely closed it before he could speak. Now was the time to quit, before asking a single question, or else he was going to be stuck here, he told himself. Ted knew himself too well. It was in his nature to settle in for the long haul with a job, he hated job hunting, he hated taking leaps of faith, and frankly, as much as it pained him to admit it, he was enjoying the time away from his wife. Their marriage had been quietly troubled for years, emphasis on quietly. They had dated in high school, married as soon as he'd graduated college, and ten years after the fact, the life they had built together was one of convenience and routine. At some point, they'd stopped arguing about what they wanted out of life, stopped arguing at all, in fact, and just…settled. Ted knew he should be using this time to think, contemplate their relationship, and grow as a person, but every time his thoughts turned to Cici, he imagined her getting fucked by some Japanese noble and it made him sick to his stomach. So, he tried not to think about it. He'd find her, find their friends, go home, and then they could have a long talk.
Assuredly, the past week must have looked insane from MenTec's perspective. He could see why they were so eager to keep him; they didn't know he'd just been following some basic genre assumptions.
Towards the end of his first full day, Ted had looked around his quiet, pleasant laboratory workspace, and hedged that he'd probably missed something. There was no way the first full day of the game was going to end with him quietly clocking in and out of work without any incidents. So, he'd started snooping around his coworkers, corporate espionage was a universal problem in every cyberpunk company after all, something would probably turn up. Best to nip it in the bud early, he figured.
And something had turned up, or someone, rather. Ted had done a little, oddly fun investigation, sent the report of his findings to the relevant bodies, and the spy had been fired. Unfortunately, he'd caught him early enough that prosecution looked unlikely, but Ted had earned himself a healthy portion of M-points out of the deal, and a good deal of Experience.
A few days later, when the same fired coworker walked through the door of the lab with a hand in his pocket, Ted hadn't hesitated for an instant. He'd turned and fired off his wrist taser without missing a beat, having already assumed that there would be attempted retribution – it was a cyberpunk hellscape, of course, there'd be. As he'd expected, a gun had fallen out of his former coworker's pocket. What he hadn't expected, was for the man to have hired mercenaries to try and rob the corporate secrets he had promised to his original employers, Fong Industrial, or for them to come pouring into the room, guns blazing as they did.
It had been a bloodbath. Ted had built a completely normal TTRPG character in Antonio D'Antonio, stupid joke name and all, but your typical PC was a borderline ungovernable, violent psychopath. The mercenaries had come armed for a quick in and out, grab some data, grab the prototypes, and get the hell out of there before MenTec could muster their forces. They had not come thinking that one of the researchers would have built a railgun into his arm – normal scientists did not do such things. Antonio D'Antonio wasn't even a former military man, there was nothing in his past to indicate that he would have done anything close to something so unhinged. The in-game reason Ted had written on his original character sheet was that the man idolized American cowboys as a child, hence the Weapon Proficiency Dice, and had added the weapon as an adult to his arm purely to see if he could fit it in with everything else inside the chassis.
He should have seen MenTec's interest coming. In the last week, Ted had bought four feats for his cybernetic arm, all of which were flavored as technological improvements; to an outsider's perspective, he must have seemed like the reincarnation of DaVinci the way he had returned to work with a new homemade upgrade day after day.
"Yasushi?"
Right, he was in the middle of quitting. He needed to get to Japan, find his wife, find his friends, and go home. "My apologies. I understand and appreciate your offer, but I'm set on moving to Japan—"
"Great!" Mizutani held his arms wide, victorious. "We have offices and labs in Japan. Your lab was badly damaged in the firefight. We would have had to transfer you somewhere else anyway."
"I…" Ted stopped himself. If he even asked one question, Mizutani would have enough to hook him. They had his psych profile, they knew what would work on him, and Ted was already vulnerable.
"Yasushi, do you really want to spend weeks to months on the job hunt, trying to get a visa and a sponsor to move to Japan? Or would you rather be living in a fully furnished, company home, rent-free in the suburbs of Tokyo by this time next week?"
Goddamnit, he cursed to himself, am I really about to do this? Am I about to go full corpo scum? It probably would be faster, though...
Ted leaned forward. "What kind of labs?"
Mizutani smirked, foxlike. Ted made a note of the way the man's canines appeared to have grown slightly sharper since they'd started talking and filed it away for later under the 'Yet More Bullshit' category with a mental sigh. Alan owed them all an apology dinner over this shit, he swore to God he wasn't letting the man live this one down.